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WebHostingGuy writes "As reported by MSNBC, if you survived the hurricane and are a Mac, Linux or Firefox user you cannot file a claim online. Further, you must have javascript enabled or face rejection. From the site: 'We are sorry for not being able to proceed your requests because you have failed our tests.' Opera and Netscape don't work either." Also reported at InformationWeek. From that story: "To file a claim online at FEMA's Individual Assistance Center, where citizens can apply for government help, the browser must be IE 6.0 or later with JavaScript enabled. That cuts out everyone running Linux or the Mac operating systems, as well as Windows users running alternate browsers such as Firefox or Opera. When TechWeb tested the site using Windows XP and Firefox 1.0.6, the message 'In order to use this site, you must have JavaScript Enabled and Internet Explorer version 6. Download it from Microsoft or call 1-800-621-FEMA (3362) to register' popped up on the screen."Update: 09/08 13:48 GMT by Z: Added word 'Online' to title to clarify story.

It's using some retarded fucking captcha implementation using IE XML data islands instead of using one of the 40 million scripts that don't require brower support. Fuckers.

I hate this stupid shit. And I know it's not even malicious, because I've seen it happen before at government agencies. It's out and out incompetence. Although it seems that given all the other crap FEMA has fucked up lately, this won't even register to most people.

Jon Stewart: So no one's going to be held accountable for this at all?Ed Helms: No. In fact, if history is any indication, they'll be hard-pressed finding enough medals to pin on these guys. My sources tell me the head of FEMA will be dipped in bronze and turned into an award to be given to other officials.

This is a case many of us are all to familiar with. One where the 'product' is being used in an environment that it was not intended.

"Mike Quealy, a FEMA spokesperson, explained to me that they are aware of the issue, and are currently working on a application that supports all of the most popular browsers. Quealy said that the application in question was originally an in-house tool, meant to be used by call center people. Internet Explorer was the official in-house browser, so the application was coded with IE in mind."

So we have an *INTERNAL* app that was opened to the public, thus adding new browsers for which it was not designed to it's possible clients.

It's also a good lesson for designing things even when you *know* the environment in which it will be used...that can change and it's best to work with standards rather than the easiest, but perhaps proprietary choice.

It's also a good lesson for designing things even when you *know* the environment in which it will be used...that can change and it's best to work with standards rather than the easiest, but perhaps proprietary choice.

Its statements like that which guarantees you'll never work in management.

And (unless you're some kind of super-genius at every task they do) will be utterly despised by the poor fuckers who work under you.

Say it with me:Unecessarily restricting your options is a Bad Thing.Vendor lock-in is a Bad Thing.Proprietary/nonstandard/deliberately-non-interoper able solutions almost always come back to bite you in the arse, which is a Bad Thing.Assuming you'll know the every single requirement placed on your system for the entire future of its lifetime is impossible, hubristic and stupid. This is a Bad Thing.

Designing to open standards, avoiding unnecessary vendor lock-in and maximising interoperability are Good Things.

Exactly. I started my current job a little over a year ago, maintaining and developing a public website for a multimillion-pound company.

The MD is a raving MS fanboy, and shortly after arriving I was informed in no small measure that I was developing for IE, and "if the site doesn't work in any of those other browsers, who cares".

(One of the funny things is, we actually produce Mac versions of some of our products, but the MD apparently doesn't care that most of those users wouldn't be able to see our site (or assumes they'll download IE/Mac, because it's Microsoft, so it must always be the best option).)

Happily (and because my boss(es) don't know any better), I've coded everything to standards and used a few quick CSS/markup hacks to get everything still looking nice in IE.

Since I started we've had three "it'll never happen" situations with (potentially extremely profitable) users using different browsers or OSes, and happily the site's worked perfectly for them.

We've also had one "it'll never happen" situation where I did actually give in and do it the way the Board specified (dynamic content served by ASP.NET instead of Perl, on a server too old to support ASP.NET reliably). Because our (cheap, crappy) hosting contract is on a Linux machine, we have to host all ASP.NET content on another (in-house) server, and seamlessly (heh, make that "as seamlessly as we can") transfer users between the main part of the site (static HTML on Apache/Linux) and the dynamic pages (ASP.NET/Windows Server).

Predictably enough the tiny pipe into the inhouse servers went down, and we ended up with a convoluted sequence of events that lead to us needing to host an ASP.NET page on the (external) Linux server. Due to the crappiness of the hosting contract they were unable to offer (or the MD was unwilling to pay) for the service, so the site had huge sections missing for several days, mostly important advertising campaign landing-pages which provide the majority of marketing leads for the company.

Had I been allowed to develop the content in the language I specified (Perl/PHP, simply for the portability), this would never have happened - we could have transferred the dynamic pages to the Linux server at no extra cost (in fact they would probably have already been there), and the site would have carried on as normal.

The morals of the story are this:

Never disobey your boss on technical matters, even when he has no fucking clue what he's babbling about. That's how you get fired.

If you can possibly obey the letter of his instructions (but disobey the spirit) and do it the right way, go for it - just cover your arse and don't spend an unreasonable amount of extra time.

People who know nothing about technical matters should let their fucking techies make technical decisions. You pay them for a reason, and if anyone could do their job why not fire them and hire a schoolkid for a fraction of the money?

"It'll never happen" scenarios pop up 100% of the time, given enough time. Your techies know this, and will sensibly plan for it. With sufficiently good techies (and budget) you never suffer the consequences of a bad technical decision, so you don't and won't.

In other words, get good techies, then get the fuck out of the way and let them do their job.

If someone else tells him. If he happens to poke around in any way, and finds something that seems odd. If anyone remotely technical apart from you looks at the work, who doesn't:
i) Already agree the guy's a fuckwit
ii) Already know you lied to him and covered it up
iii) Agree it's ok to lie to your boss, and
iv) Have nothing to gain by showing the boss he's been lied to.

Once he gets suspicious you have to lie again to cover that. And at the very least he's going to be suspicious from now on, so you're less likely to get away with anything (possibly, more important) in the future.

Basically, once you lie to him once, you'd better be fucking sure he's never, ever going to find out about it. See my earlier point about "it'll never happen" scenarios;-)

"2) If it works, why will he bother?"

Some people place a higher priority on "being obeyed" than on "things working".

They probably justify it to themselves that if they can't trust the employee to do whatever you want, no matter how insane, pointless or counter-productive, then you can't trust the employee, period.

The people are generally paranoid, uneducated in the relevant field, prone to micromanagement, fucking control freaks, and, overwhelmingly, bosses.

"3) You'll give yourself an ulcer if you keep bending over like that"

Well, no ulcers yet, but several bald patches on my head from tearing hair out, yes.

"4) If you let the insane define reality, then your reality will be insane"

Oh, do you work here? What are the odds?;-)

"5) NEVER get into a position where you *need* the job. Build up, save a little, keep within your means and you can kiss a stupid job goodbye (note: if you get sacked because you didn't apply the required solution, but still got the result, you will get severance and dole)."

That's a lovely idea, but unfortunately, with the state of higher education in the UK, you're lucky to come out of your first degree without at least a £10,000 debt. A good first job in computing in my area is £16,000-£18,000. It can take a long while to dig yourself out of the hole, and you'd better quickly get used to getting fucked in the arse on the way...:-(

Also, a note: I don't know where you're from, but here in the UK disobeying any reasonable request from your boss can easily end up as "Gross Misconduct". Getting sacked is also no guarantee you'll immediately get the dole, and the dole doesn't cover things like a car (essential to find a new job), university loan repayments, lack of a recent reference for your CV, etc.

"Look, your job is to make it work, the way you were told. If it doesn't, it is your fault. That's why he's the boss and you aren't:"

Try again. Your job is to obey the guy signing your pay-cheques. If that's what the guy signing the pay-cheques thinks, any disagreement on your part (even for the greater good) will quickly result in no pay-cheques any more.

"No, you will get fired if it doesn't work. With a moron for a boss, you are in a no-win situation. Leave, or at least plan to leave. It is better to leave on your terms than his."

I dunno - in my experience it's better to argue firmly and sensibly with the stupid decision then abide by it - if the worst comes to the worst you can always cite your objections and claim you were "only obeying orders".

If you go off and do your own thing, even if it succeeds, you haven't proven that the boss's approach wouldn't have. Therefore you have definitely disobeyed an order for a possible better outcome. This leaves you no excuse and no way of demonstrating (to non-techncal people who really don't want to listen) that it would have gone wrong in the first place.

Plus, y'know, there's a certain evil sense of satisfaction in sitting back, doing what you're told and watching it all go to shit... <:-)

You know given the flux that FEMA has been in the past few years, it's not suprising and, in fact, perhaps even understandable, that some tech hasn't yet got to the "Redesign online application form" on his ToDo list yet. I mean lets be honest people: How many of us have projects that have been sitting on our desk for 6 months, 12 months, hell 5 years, that we "just never get around to starting". The difference is that most of us don't work with FEMA and get our prioritizing mistakes posted to the front page of Slashdot when the shit hits the fan.

And just as a side note, if I'm ever in a disaster the size and scope of which requires me to contact FEMA, my first thought is not going to be "Oh gee I better check their website". I know it's 2005 and all but in that situation I'm still going to want to talk to a live person.

Well he did appoint the man in charge, someone who had been on the board of International Arabian Horse Association. He seems to have left there under a cloud about contributions to their legal defense fund and immediately got a job as FEMA director. I think he is highly qualified in disaster planning, unfortunately not disaster releif planning.

I think Bush can take some heat for this kind of miss-use of the public trust. These are not choice political plums to be given to big contributers or supporters but to qualified hard working capable individuals with credentials for the job. Especially when the lives of our mother and fathers and sons and brothers and daughters and uncles and neices are involved.

The buck needs to stop where the fundemental problems stem from, not only where the problems show up.

Bush appoints the (completely unqualified, but old-boy friend of Bush) head of FEMA.

The head of FEMA is responsible for his organisation.

FEMA fucks up royally, in everything from its response to the New Orleans disaster to stupid piddling stuff like unnecessarily rejecting non IE-browsers on its website (which, nevertheless, can cause additional hassle and stress for people already destitute, financially ruined and recently-bereaved).

Damn straight Bush should carry the can for the whole fuck-up. He should resign, step down or be impeached for fucking the country until it can't respond to a simple natural disaster that everyone saw coming hours or days (weeks?) away. Not to start a right vs. left flamewar, but frankly I wouldn't be averse to seeing him do jail-time for the damage he's caused to your country.

The director of FEMA should resign immediately, since he's proven himself unable to do his job. He should emphatically not just be "golden parachuted" or shifted to another sinecure. He fucked up, let him find a new bloody job.

The guy responsible for the retarded website policy should have his knuckles rapped. He should have known better, and he's likely caused a lot of extra hassle for the last people in the country who need extra shit right now.

See, if you can't hold bosses responsible for the actions of their subordinates, what the fuck kind of restraints are there on them?

The Feds and Bush do deserve some blame about the NO situation. My problem comes with trying to pin the whole thing on FEMA or the Fed. States and cities also carry responsiblity to be prepared for situations like this. The mayor of NO and the gov. of LA both appear to have had little to no plan for a hurricane event.

Everyone should know that big gov. takes time. It always has and it always will. That's why people at the local and state level need to have plans in place and be prepared for these events.

I know the NO flooding was a unique event and can't really be compared to any other hurricane scenario, but I've been through a cat 4 hurricane (Hugo '89). The mayor and the gov. of where I lived at the time knew wtf they were doing and were able to manage things until more help could arrive. They had a plan and while not everything went perfectly (does it ever), I think they did quite well.

Bush appoints the (completely unqualified, but old-boy friend of Bush) head of FEMA.

Even worse, Bush fired Clinton appointee James Lee Witt, who came to the job with several years of experience as head of disaster management in Arkansas. Witt revitalized FEMA, and was highly respected by both Republicans and Democrats, but Bush chose to replace Witt with Joe Allbaugh, Bush's campaign manager. When Allbaugh left the job, Bush appointed Brown to this crucial post--another man with no experience in disaster management (or indeed, any evidence of competence of any kind).

Especially since the bucks responsible for upgrading the levee system were PERSONALLY slashed from the budget and diverted to Iraq - which in itself was a fucking moronic operation.

Not to mention the moronic folding of FEMA into DHS,as has been pointed out by every commentator in the last week. Which was no surprise to me, since FEMA's primary mandate is to secure the state, not the citizenry, in an emergency. In fact, the only "emergency" FEMA is mandated to "manage" is a threat against the state. It's no accident they're the ones with the authority to do all the things the conspiracy buffs like to cite.

Especially since the bucks responsible for upgrading the levee system were PERSONALLY slashed from the budget and diverted to Iraq - which in itself was a fucking moronic operation

That's funny, because I seem to remember notable publications like the New York Times criticizing the earlier form of his budget which allocated MORE funds to the Army Corps of Engineers. Seems they thought the funds would be better used for "social programs." Well, we're certainly going to have more people on social programs after this disaster.

Look, FEMA fucked up and was sloppy. I have no idea how much was the politically appointee at the top, and how much is institutional stupidity that goes back years. Some blame belongs to Bush and his appointee, on the "buck stops here" logic, but let's be realistic on some of what happened.

The Levee maintenance program has been "underfunded" for THREE decades. Every federal program is "underfunded," because people ask for the world, get something, and can now claim to have been underfunded.

It is NOT clear that if that $250m was restored to the Federal budget that the levees would have held. We have NO IDEA. But when the levees and a system designed for Category 3 Hurricanes gets hit with a slow moving Category 4, better maintenance PROBABLY WOULD NOT have mattered.

Louisiana/New Orleans have a Levee Maintenance Board that is supposed to maintain and improve the Levees. They can issue municipal bonds to pay for it (those lovely options that cities and states have that pay a lower interest rate than treasuries, because the interest is federal tax free, so the government picks up a third of the interest tab in terms of your rate being lower by a third). However, in typical Louisiana corruption, it was filled with political friends with NO INTEREST in Levees, and focused on casinos.

Further, FEMA is EXTREMELY powerful, which makes civil libertarians nervous. Here you have an executive branch department that can single-handedly declare martial law, basically suspend the constitution, etc., powers normally only available to Congress in wartime. The CHECK on government abuse is that a city or state MUST request that help. Now, in an ideal world, FEMA would ONLY be called in REAL emergencies (but when you declare an emergency, FEMA picks up 80% of the tab, so anytime you can you declare an emergency), but federal programs only work when they expand, not only act 1-4 times a decade.

The evacuation of New Orleans was the city's responsibility and the city's PLAN called for using school buses to evacuate people... why didn't this happen?

Notifying FEMA of where shelter's are is a LOCAL responsibility, because FEMA doesn't come in until AFTER there is an emergency. The Superdome is a lovely batch of embarrassment. FEMA learned through official channels 2 or 3 days in that there were people there with no food and water. The news-media was floored "don't you have a television." But as sad as this is, it kinda makes sense... You have some level of lower down FEMA officials going over their checklist, and the Superdome isn't on it, so it is ignored. The higher ups are watching the Superdome footage on TV thinking "those poor people, at least help is on the way." But a disconnect there completely makes sense, and is extremely tragic. Whoever is on the ground sees that it isn't on their list and assumes that it is someone else's. Those above that see it isn't getting help assume that it is on someone's list... More people die... I place the bame 70%-30%, 70% on local officials who didn't notify FEMA properly, and 30% Fed's, because when you see the media talking about people there being without food or medicine for 2-3 days, you call down the pipe until you find out who is responsible for it. The media attention could have made it possible to save lives, if someone thought outside the box.

Decades of mismanagement and corruption in Louisiana caused a catastrophe... Bush is apparently a COMPLETELY incompetent leader who can't get anyone good in the government... This situation sucks. But I'm sick of the partisanship on this... Plenty of stupidity goes around.

BTW: more has been spent on Levee's by the Feds in the 5 years that Bush has been in office than the 8 years that Clinton was in office. That doesn't mean anything, but this "Bush wanted to levees to break so he cut funding" doesn't match reality. I'm pretty sure that the leader of the free world wasn't personally overseeing levee maintenance... unfortunately, neither was the levee maintenance board...

Surely they can be nailed on the accessibility.
There is a nice helpful link [fema.gov] on every page saying that they are committed to accessibility.
There is even a email address, to allow people who think that accessibility to this site is sub-optimal, to contact them.If you know anyone who feels this way, maybe they should send an email to
FEMAOPA@dhs.gov
and I'm sure they will be pleased to sort it out.

Or, more likely, they merely copied and pasted code they obtained from somewhere else that appeared to do what they want, and as it happens, the code they copied was specifically designed to exclude non windows, non IE users.

Not that being this stupid in any way is any more tolerable than if they had done it deliberately, but still...

Why does it matter? Because some people wanted to make kiosks based on donated hardware to set up in New Orleans for this purpose, as well as hopefully contacting worrying family members. Installing windows would A) reduce the security of a kiosk B) cost more money as liscensing would be the most expensive part of the operation C) exclude most older donated hardware and d) take longer per kiosk. This means significantly less kiosks will be able to be be set up.

And people have run tests that show the website doesn't actually use any IE only features, it simply checks to make sure it is IE and then locks your browser out if it reports as something else. So there is no reason that the site is IE centric anyways.

My wife's an arabian horsewoman and shot up in her chair when she heard he was in charge of FEMA. He nearly broke the International Arabian Horse Association with lawsuits over equine comsmetic surgery, and soon after solicited personal defense funds as part of his work - an ethics violation. He left with the IAHA in a pretty good uproar in the middle of a three year contract. Either way, it was Charlie Foxtrot.

Mac user since '84, and Republican since I first voted in '76. I'm a Firefox using, MS-bashing, gun-toting, pro-choice, anti-church, SUV-driving, meat-eating geek (with that list, I'm sure I'll piss off everybody). And, if you're into political correctness, just add me to your foes list now. There are many of us that can't all be painted into the same extreme circle that you'd like to put us in. Just as you're not all Ted Kennedy liberals, we're not all Pat Robertson conservatives. Believe it or not, there are people on both sides that are actually *boggle* reasonable. I've got a couple of friends who are (by my definition) extremely liberal, and we're able to enjoy each others company because we can debate the issues without holding the other in contempt...unlike many of the folks here that can't resist the urge to karma-whore by turning every issue into a conservative bash-fest.

I don't get this "leader of the free world", I live in a free country (Brasil) and Bush is not my leader. There a many people in Europe for witch bush is not a leader also. I never voted for him, I don't like him, I am happy that my country goverment question his polices frequently. He is not the leader of the free world, unless free means something else I didn't learn while studing english.

The Section 508 accessibility [section508.gov] guidelines are a requirement for all U.S. government sites. I have helped to develop several.gov sites, and we take 508 compliance very seriously. I think the people responsible for www.fema.gov are about to get dragged over the coals, and rightly so. Making their website work in one *one* browser is the antithesis of accessibility.

Not only that, but I frankly find it deplorable that FEMA is treating its website from a business perspective.

In a company, somone can find it most beneficial and cost effective (sometimes, wrongly so) to support the browser that has 80-90% market share (I'm probably off on that stat, but that's not the point). However, when it comes to providing aid to hurricane victims, the government is simply not allowed to only provide to 80-90% of the people.

There should not be any development costs even considered. Make the website work for everyone because EVERYONE needs the help. This is aid, not sales.

"The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is committed to providing access to our web pages for individuals with disabilities, both members of the public and Federal employees.

To meet this commitment, we will comply with the requirements of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. Section 508 requires that individuals with disabilities, who are members of the public seeking information or services from us, have access to and use of information and data that is comparable to that provided to the public who are not individuals with disabilities, unless an undue burden would be imposed on us. Section 508 also requires us to ensure that Federal employees with disabilities have access to and use of information and data that is comparable to the access to and use of information and data by Federal employees who are not individuals with disabilities, unless an undue burden would be imposed on us.

If you use assistive technology (such as a Braille reader, a screen reader, TTY, etc.) and the format of any material on our web sites interfere with your ability to access the information, please contact FEMAOPA@dhs.gov for assistance. To enable us to respond in a manner most helpful to you, please indicate the nature of your accessibility problem, the preferred format in which to receive the material, the web address of the requested material, and your contact information."

Some people also have been having some success using Firefox and the User Agent Switcher extension and setting it to IE6. I tried this and was able to get a little further in the process, but stopped before actually having to fill out a form. I'll leave that to those who really need help.

Hmm...I tested this myself, and with the User Agent Switcher set to IE, there's no problems at

all. Seems to me that the problem with non-IE browsers is a purely manufactured one...one that could be fixed by editing one lne of code.

I think the problem and solution may not be related. Hang with me on this one. We are asking the browser to the website what brand of browser it is and then the website determines what you can and cannot see simply based on that one piece of information. It should be a little different, the web site asks, can you handle JavaScript and a reply of yes from the browser. The website will now send you JavaScript info. Can you handle frames, DHTML, CSS and the list goes on as new technologies are added. So your browser would have an XML sheet of the response it should give to questions. Don't like JavaScript edit it to NO and the website should handle the request properly anyway.

I really think that the User Agent string should be abandoned to prevent poor coupling and cohesion of website and browsers. This User Agent string should be replaced with a list of browser capabilities.

We are asking the browser to the website what brand of browser it is and then the website determines what you can and cannot see simply based on that one piece of information. It should be a little different, the web site asks, can you handle JavaScript and a reply of yes from the browser. The website will now send you JavaScript info. Can you handle frames, DHTML, CSS and the list goes on as new technologies are added.

This kind of thing already exists. You don't ask if Javascript is available, you code your HTML as if it weren't, and make your Javascript alter the document structure. If the Javascript executes, then the structure is how you want, if the Javascript doesn't execute, then it remains in the compatible state.

Finer-grained control is possible too - Google for object detection versus browser detection. There's also DOM interfaces to check for support for certain things, but they aren't widely supported. "DHTML" is nothing but a buzzword - it's not something a browser can support, frames already have a fallback method, and so on.

I really think that the User Agent string should be abandoned to prevent poor coupling and cohesion of website and browsers. This User Agent string should be replaced with a list of browser capabilities.

The User-Agent header is important for working around actual browser bugs, e.g. not being able to cope with compressed content correctly despite claiming to do so.

It's not that they can't file claims without using IE... they just can't do it online. If you've ever tried programming javascript for client side error checking of complex forms, you know that standards are very non-existant in the internet world. I completely understand why they would only want people using IE to register, especially if they didn't have much of a tech support staff. It's near impossible to cater a web app to every single flavor of every browser for every OS.

If you've ever tried programming javascript for client side error checking of complex forms, you know that standards are very non-existant in the internet world.

You shouldn't use clientsided checking, as the golden rule in web developing is that you can't trust the client, EVER. Clientsided checking should only be used as a convenience for the user (save the user a trip to the server and back because he forgot to fill in something), not for anything serious. You have to check input at the server script anyway, so why not allow non-javascript browsers?

I'm sorry, but that's not just true anymore. It's what I do, every day - and where JS/Client side scripting was hellish in the late 90's there are plenty of examples of complex and mature javascript driven apps. Claiming that it's all too hard is the easy way out, there are standards, they are supported, widely amongst modern clients and it's just lazy to say, "screw it, we'll make it work in IE and nothing else".

You should also never be mandating error checking of complex forms on the client side because you can't control the client-side. If it's complex enough that you can't reliably deploy it in JS, you should be writing that logic into the server side code.

Yes, I'm sure that they have their web developer out in a helicopter right now scanning for survivors. Give me a break. Someone is paid to maintain and support this website, and he or she is not doing his job well.

If your code is REMOTELY standards compliant then it'll pretty much work on every browser. You have to really lock yourself into Active X and.Net before you run into true incompatibility, which means you have to decide from the start to use a platform that you know is imprefectly supported.

If this was a business, fine, who cares. But this is a disaster relief agency funded by taxpayer dollars, and they goddamn well better have a site that can be viewed by all citizens who need to view it.

Just part and parcel with the rest of their collossal incompetence during the current distaster.

And don't tell me they have better things to do; I haven't seen 'em do hardly anything yet. They could have used the week after the hurricane, when they were sitting around with their thumbs up their asses while everyone else was doing their job for them to at least make a webpage that could at least be viewed by the people who're still using older versions of IE!

That isn't the issue. The issue is that FEMA created a website for people to file claims and because if it's poor, incompetent and idiotic design (according to reports, the page works great with the IE user agent), people are barred from accessing that functionality. That's the problem. No one is advocating that the FEMA people stop all operations so that they can focus on fixing the site.

When a public institution sets up a service with the tax payer's money for the tax payers to use and in the end there are clients which *UNNECESSARILY* can't access the service, that is just plain incompetence.

Your logic is seriously flawed. First of all, FEMA is a COORDINATOR of emergency services. This includes coordination at all levels from first aid and plucking from roof tops to getting people the information and help they need to get longer term assistance and aid across different agencies. FEMA is not providing helicopters, money or food directly. Again, they are cordinating emergency responders. Not every one of the million or so people effected by the storm in the area is at the same point or condition. You can not wait and devote every resource (including your contracted web developer like you suggest) until every single person is out of the city before you start working with the people that are already out. The emergency response is a parallel effort, not serial. Many people are at the next level and need to apply for assistance now. There is an artifical barrier in place that may make the application harder or more difficult for some people. I agree that FEMA is all jacked right now though.

If you think thats even in the top hundred things FEMA has gotten wrong on this, you haven't been watching the news.

Its a non-issue. A tiny percentage of real users have heard of anything other than IE, and an even tinier percentage of people who need FEMA support have electricity, internet access or a computer anymore.

If you all are going to get bent about something FEMA is doing, get bent about the fact that phone and internet is the only way to register and most refugees have neither. Or get bent about the fact that 90% of calls don't go through to the FEMA number.

This is just rediculous to get worked up about. Who cares? If 1% of thet people affected have internet access, and 1% of those use Firefox (and happen to be using someones computer that has Firefox and not IE), then out of the million people affected, what? 100 might have a problem? 100 people tech aware enough to use firefox? They probably can find a damn cell phone.

1. A lot of people have Macs. A lot of people are stranded without easy access to multiple computer platforms.

2. Aid workers are busy setting up computers for these people to use to contact relatives and fill out aid forms. They are not getting free Dell computers or free Windows licenses. They are setting up older computers that have been donated and may not run IE 6.

3. FEMA's listed phone number will trigger an automated form delivery to your home address. In New Orleans. Not very helpful.

9 times out of 10 when sites demand that you use IE, it works fine with other browsers as well and the check is completely unneccessary. Just damn lazy site creators who assume it will take a lot of resources and time to verify that the site works with other browers.

This is an example of what happens when you remove the public from participation in routine activites. One reason the gov't especially on public information systems should invite citizens to give them feedback is to prevent this kind of problem: people with older computers can't file. (this is a much bigger problem than Mac/Linux)

Back in the day, FEMA was drilled and had a civilian function though the Civil Defense program. FEMA was well drilled and practiced at large scale disasters because it was busy preparing to deal with what happens after a massive nuclear strike. In the 80s much of FEMAs prepositioned assets were sold off (as opposed to updated) - handy stuff like surgical kits, sealed ready for action truck-in hospitals, pre-built emergency clinics, ready to go tent towns and prepositioned ration reserves. I bought some stuff at a local government auction when it happened, too (nice tents, cots, surgical kits make nice fly tying tools).

The cold war era FEMA would have easily handled this disaster. The military commad structure would not have been nearly so worried about waiting for approval from a clueless governor or a mayor who was stuck in a location with limited communication capacity. Sometimes it is better to ask forgiveness from the politicians than the public.

This is exactly why I posted to Ask Slashdot (rejected) to ask what everyone thought about putting together some type of generic system for disaster victims.

Disasters may be the worst time for requiring proprietary systems.

There has been some discussion on isc.sans.org about the Red Cross needing IT volunteers to develop their system.

My idea is that most of us have extra stuff laying around that could easily be used with a customized Knoppix type CD (no HD keeps the cost down and the system intact up). The systems could be used to get shelters online (some corp can provide the circuit for Internet access). On the backend there could be a DB for victims.

Also, a lot of these people have lost EVERYTHING. A barebones computer that gets them online is better than no computer at all.

For Pete's sake - let's cut the propaganda for once. I've been helping out at the Dallas convention center for the past five days and I can tell you first and that, for the people I've encountered anyway, they have very, very limited computer skills. Most of them were very poor prior to Katrina and owning a computer was never truly an option. It's not like they're sitting there, pulling out their self-built box, and saying "Ah shit - Damn FEMA for forcing me to install IE". I'd be shocked if more than a handful have even heard of Linux or Firefox, nevermind using it. The people that are affected by FEMA's choice certainly have the skills, knowledge, and ability to handle this very, very minor situation. The rest of us, quite frankly, don't really care.

That's not true. Opera works. I spent last weekend volunteering at the Reunion Arena shelter in Dallas. We booted one machine with Knoppix because the Windows install was bad. Mozilla and Konquerer failed to load the page correctly. So I downloaded Opera and it worked. Unless FEMA have gone out of their way to eliminate Opera, you should be able to register with Opera. In other words, there is nothing on that page that Opera cannot handle. We've registered a few hundred people already and a few with Opera.

The stupid site really ticks me off. Even with IE you will have problems. I think they did the stupid thing in ASP. Every stupid action you take requires exchange of states between you and the server. If you click before that's complete it will give you and error and you might have to start all over. There was nothing on that page that could not have been done with simple HTML

BTW, yesterday was the first day FEMA started working fully in Dallas. Their computers couldn't network properly so they had to take over OUR PCs to register people by doing exactly the same thing we've been doing. Not only that, they only want those computers, which do not belong to them, to be used only for FEMA registration. In the words of a FEMA worker, "People need money not email or Internet." That would be great if they all knew where the family was or our government was competent enough to provide them with that information. Unfortunately, most people have to look for their family on their own on the Internet.

Just to add to this story...I was listening to a local talk radio station on my way home from work yesterday. They played an interview with a woman who was extremely frustrated, almost to the point of tears, with FEMA and their apparent lack of knowledge on the situation of people displaced by Katrina.

She called them in order to make a claim and they asked her for her address so they could send her the required paperwork (not sure HOW she called them). She told them she no longer had an address as her home no longer existed. They then asked for her home phone number so they could call her back...she again informned them she no longer had a home. They then asked for her cell phone number. She again told them there was no cell phone service where she is located. They then asked her for her fax number...then her email address....you get the picture.

FEMA's motto must be "Let's make it hard for people to get the support they need."

Is FEMA living in a hole, in a cave, in the middle of a desert or what?

How do you we do this once Proxomitron and Gryphen's filters are installed? Easy! Open up

User - Include - Exclude.txt

Then add the following into this file.

www.fema.gov $SET(keyword=.js.ajs.code.flash.popup.iesite.)

Once this is done - you can now visit the site using any god damn browser you want. In my case I tested the registration page under Opera, Firefox, and Mozilla, and as far as FEMA site was concerned, this was my user agent.

User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)

So really, I don't know why moronic webmasters, especially for a government or government related site, want to pull shit like this for users whom may not know how to get around "IE only" requirements.

I have found that writing emails about the situation, the existence of the World Wide Web Consortium standards body, and the existence as well as compliance of "other browsers" with the w3.org standards.... politely, usually results in the site getting updated when the organization gets a chance.

Nobody wants to have their organization as being seen as backwards technically or with regards to standards.

Please do no just complain about this issue on slashdot. Send a polite not to FEMA.

IE on Mac stopped at version 5.2.3, not 5.5.The version of IE for Mac had very little to do with the Windows versions. Different code base etc. I tried to use it recently and most sites that require IE won't work with IE for Mac anyway so there is really very little point in having it. The thing is so slow it isn't funny and the look of it is quite unlike modern Mac applications as it is still covered in the old pinstripe stuff. Safari is much better and has much greater compatibility than IE for Mac th

This just one of a growing number of complaints against the FEMA. It's so bad that some are calling for its director, Micheal Brown, to be fired. Apparently, he's had problems in prior positions as well, as described HERE [dailykos.com]

Also, to address your point, I'm guessing that people will be filing their claims OUTSIDE of those areas.

Having endured very similar circumstances, last year with hurricane Ivan, I can tell you that cell phones worked a month before any land lines or internet.I can also tell you that the people waist deep in this disaster really appreciate the media and Slashdot slashdotting the FEMA site right when they need it the most. But, at least you worthless bastards are doing your part by whining about their choice of browser, stuff that really matters! The browser debate was really important to me when I had no water

Having endured very similar circumstances, last year with hurricane Ivan, I can tell you that cell phones worked a month before any land lines or internet.

The difference being, you were in the area where the disaster occurred and dealing with the damaged infrastructure. The people from Katrina are not sitting around New Orleans trying to fill out FEMA forms online, they are 600 miles away in Texas, Alabama, etc, where electricity, phones and computers are available to them.

Those computers are all old, donated systems from corporations looking for a tax break. Those computers do NOT have dual Xeon processors and Windows XP with IE 6 on them, they're old Pentiums and PIIs running windows 98/IE5 and that sort of thing. God forbid Wal*Mart should donate a bunch of new $400 Linspire computers to the Red Cross thinking they can actually be any help.

You wait in line for the computers, you wait in line for the phones, but hopefully everyone can get their stuff done. If you say "oh, none of the computers work with any of the forms you need to resume your life as a human being", then blammo, you just made everybody wait twice as long for the phone.

There are no towers. Central Offices are down. Emergency power generation is flooded. How can you say that cell phones work? Please note the massive demand for sat phones right now precisely because of this. But thank you for applying annecdotal evidence that isn't applicable.

I think in the end you're probably better off just using the telephone

--krrrr click--Thank you for calling FEMA, we regret to inform you that since you're using a Nokia mobile phone, we cannot connect you to an operator, please switch to a Motorola cellphone to make full use of our services. -bzzz- Have a nice day. --bleep--

I can see it already..Download Microsoft Vote(tm) for the next election!Anyone without a Genuine Advantage Entitled Windows XP Service pack 2 must either upgrade or not be able to register to vote. Available also for Windows MobileXP.

From the EULA... User accepts pre-defined choices in the following categories....... User declines the right to recall....... User hereby waives right to request a recount....... User will be registered to vote in a state of Microsoft's chosing as needs require....

They should not put anything up until the site is 100% cross-browser compatible.

I assume you are being sarcastic? You are looking at it backwards. Websites start out 100% cross-browser compatible. It takes more work to go from standard HTML forms that work in every browser to complicated XML data islands that only work in software from a single vendor. Somewhere, some incompetent web developer decided that simple HTML wasn't good enough, and put in extra work to make it more complicated and in doi

AFAICT, many of those filing claims have to do it on line. The are running into problems with this setting up computer kiosks at all the shelters, since even if they are setting up a PC with Windows, it has to have the right version of IE, and many of the PCs are donated.

They can't do it via mail - a ton of people lost their homes, and have no address. Even those who have an address in LA, AL, or MI are still in trouble if they were near the disaster area since the postal service has halted mail delivery.

They can't do it via phone - those that have called have reported that FEMA will only mail them a claim form via the phone.

Is there some other method I am overlooking? AFAICT if you lost your house, and you don't have access to the right version of a web browser this is a pretty major issue.

Most of the population evacuated. FEMA claim forms are very important to people who left, are safe, but are running out of hotel money, spending money, gas money.So, you're in a strange city, and your Dell Celeron box is sitting under a foot of mud. Doesn't really matter, as it's two hundred miles away, behind police roadblocks and without power, phone or broadband.You can't reach FEMA on the phone - they keep hanging up on you because they're swamped.You're looking for a computer with an internet connection. Not just any computer. No macs, no 'NIX, no webtv, no cellphone browsers, no older PCs. Windows XP doesn't even assure you success. It has to have IE 6, which was a large download and was unavailable at the launch time of any Windows desktop operating system.

You're looking for a computer that has either been updated, or is fairly new and runs windows. Heck, I've never seen IE 6 in a library! Around here, they run IE 5 or Navigator!

This is going to be redundant, but the issue is this: People have lost their possessions. So likely don't have computers.

The phone service will only mail you forms to your home address, either being useless as they don't have mail service or an address to deliver to, or delaying their movement through the system for no reason.

The alternative is the web based form, however, in the shelters the only computers available are donated ones. Many of these do not have WindowsXP installed, and even if they did, the disaster workers are using putting in a standard Knoppix boot to greatly simplify administration and such. Not to mention avoid license issues.

So they cannot access the forms this way either, again needlessly delaying their progress. This is forcing many people to wait until the disaster is over, and FEMA gets around to placing kiosks where people can go to sign up.

Not only is this inefficient for FEMA, but it's stupid to make people in a shelter with a computer and internet access unable to fill out the forms NOW.

By requireing IE6 - FEMA is saying that people need to donate new computers or ones with paid up licenses (and how does one do that anyway? Lots of red tape) vs giving any functional hardware from the last 12 years or so and a non legally encumbered CD the aid workers can pop-in.